Prompt 13: Princess

From the very moment she was born, Starfire was a princess. And from that moment on she was treated as such.

They would dress her in the finest of clothes, provide her with delicacies from all across the universe, and wait on her hand and foot. She was royalty all of her days on Tamaran, and she became accustomed to such treatment. The people loved her, shouted her name heartily as she passed them in the streets with her family.

"Princess!" They would shout at her, waving their arms and cheering, not a single face without a smile. "It's the beautiful Princess Starfire!"

She was taught the ways of war by the finest teachers in any given galaxy, the Warlords of Okaara, and they bowed at her feet when she came and went for her lessons. They instructed her more carefully than any of their other students, and praised her more enthusiastically when she demonstrated her craft with all the grace, beauty, and passion that any proper princess should. Starfire was a princess, and that was that.

But then the warriors of the Citadel came and raped the lands of Tamaran, overtaking vast cities, ravaging homes, slaughtering the innocent, and tarnishing the natural beauty that once thrived across the entirety of the planet. And when the Tamaranians fell and admitted defeat, wishing to salvage what was left of a broken people, the Citadel chose Starfire as their prize.

She cried and begged her father to protect her, to stop them from taking her away and giving her over to what would most certainly be a living hell for the rest of her life. When he stiffly refused, his face was stony and cold but his eyes betrayed him with a tear. Starfire asked him why she had to do it; why she was being forced to live out such a terrifying fate, especially by people who supposedly loved her.

"You are sacrificing yourself for your people," he responded softly, almost regretfully, his gaze fixated on the ground, "because you are a princess."

I'll try to bring more, more than I can handle.
-World on Fire/Sarah McLachlan-